Why Email Executives?

E-Mail Marketing: How to Improve ROI?

A new report examines the new developments in e-mail marketing and compares the effectiveness of this still-evolving marketing tool with other direct marketing channels. E-mail is effective there is no arguing with that. The channel works amazingly well for marketers who know how to use it. Even 45% of consumers in a recent survey said it was a "great way" for companies to stay in touch with their customers. Return on investment for e-mail marketing tops all other channels except for telemarketing. Dimensional and direct mail may generate higher revenues per contact, and sometimes better response rates, but their costs are substantially higher, too. And among the four media with lower costs per contact than e-mail, response rates are abysmal.

Revenue, Cost and Response Rates for Direct Response Marketing in the US with Direct Order Objectives, by Media, 2004 

Note: *ROI Index is a baseline indicator used for comparing overall efficiency of one medium over another, calculated in this case by dividing revenue per contact by the promo cost per contact. Source: Direct Marketing Association, October 2004
 
Keys to a Successful Email Campaign

Executive email prospecting has fast become the most effective method of finding new opportunities. It has some key benefits that allow it to compliment other methods of prospecting.

      1. Quickly identify the organizations interested in the type of solution you offer; only those with a true interest are likely to respond to your request.
   2. Quickly identify many of the organizations who are already satisfied with a solution similar to that which you offer, allowing you to focus your efforts on more receptive prospects.
   3. Executives who receive your inquiry are more likely to be able to command the resources to invest in your solution because you are targeting upper level management.
4. Subordinates who receive your email forwarded from an executive are more likely to pay serious attention to you because your inquiry was forwarded by an upper executive. ________________________________________________________

Even though email marketing provides incredible communications and lead generation possibilities, you may still be finding it difficult to reap those benefits.

Why?

Because the biggest challenge in email marketing is finding a list of targeted and accurate addresses that will put you in contact with executives and decision makers. 5 Logistic points of a successful broadcast email Campaign:

1. The business email List itself.
2. The Message (HTML or Text) for broadcast email.
3. The broadcast email technology and bandwidth.
4. Business email list Management.
5. Email Reporting. Email list etiquette and best practice e-mail marketing:

Tip #1 : Don't pester people on an email list. Sending email, it seems, is so easy that some people overdo it. If you call a prospect every day, that's pestering, and the same goes for marketing to an email list. Respect people's time and privacy. Don't use the technology to excess because it's there.

Tip #2 : Don't be devious or misleading to people on an email list. Remember, Federal laws prohibit marketing e-mail messages that are deceiving or misleading. The subject line should not make the recipient think he or she is getting something he or she is not. Obviously, determining what's misleading is a judgment call, so use your best judgment when marketing to an email list. If you dislike getting direct mail that looks suspiciously like a bill or an IRS notice, avoid using similar deceptive tactics in your email marketing campaign to an email list.

Tip #3 : Don't overburden your recipient on e-mail lists. It can be taxing on your contacts to read really long emails. Huge files that take a long time to download are also an annoyance to many recipients on an email list, especially those with older, slower PC's. When sending rich-media and graphic email message to an email list, keep file size to a maximum of 40 to 50K, a preferably 40K or less when sending out to an email list.

Tip #4 : Do use discretion with multiple email addresses. Someone who doesn't reveal his or her email address to every Dick, Jane and Sally may not appreciate your listing it visibly when you send a single message to many people at once. This is the number one reason why people use or hired a professional email marketing company to marketing to their email list. Most email systems have separate procedures for "carbon copies" where the list of recipients appears along with the message, and "blind carbon copies," where the email list is nowhere to be seen. Take care to send "blind" kind of message to a email list if your are set to doing it yourself, especially where those on the email list really deserve to remain anonymous to each other, as with people answering classified ads.